Following successful strikes in August, the UC Berkeley Labor Center published a report showing the very high cost of low wages in the fast food sector.

Among their findings:

More than half (52 percent) of the families of front-line fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25 percent of the workforce as a whole.

The cost of public assistance to families of workers in the fast-food industry is nearly $7 billion per year.
Following that report, the National Employment Law Project found that the top fast food employers are the biggest beneficiaries of that assistance:

Additionally, the report found that the top five fast food companies profited a combined $7.44 billion while purchasing $7.7 billion in stock buybacks for the benefit of executives and investors.
People working in fast-food jobs are more likely to live in or near poverty. Meanwhile, fast food corporations are posting records in profits and buybacks while spending billions on advertising and millions on corporate jets.
If the stark difference between workers and executives becomes too much McDonald’s has sage advice for its employees: “Stop Complaining.”
But it gets even worse. Workers admit that their bosses routinely steal from them as well.

For these reasons and more, we are joining the #FastFoodGlobal day of action.

And, it's not just wages we need. We need wages for sure, but we also need basic workers' rights. Rights to vacation and sick time, rights to health benefits and pensions. We need to get rid of "employment at will," get rid of "temporary" workers, and "independent f-ing contractors" all the bull sh-t ways employers are ripping off American workers.

We need a government that stands up for the rights of the worker, the backbone of our society. When the worker is dignified, his family is dignfied and his nation is dignified. When the worker is raped and pillaged, so is his society.

Jobs should be available for all able workers. If you refuse to work to care for yourself you likely have a mental health issue and that is another matter altogether. We should have healthcare for all, as well as jobs.

I never said that. Unemployment is a societal illness, HCabret2014. Especially in the wealthiest nation on earth. It's a sign of a very sick society.

Because, you see, it is a human right to have work to support oneself decently. When an economic system is set up such that enough jobs don't exist then you have a human rights crisis and a sick society.

The exploitation of workers happens in just about every business, big and small, "politically correct" and not. Sadly, greed must be regulated. So, bravo to these workers for standing up their employer.

The people in Detroit who are having their water turned off should fight back hard. It is not their fault that Detroit's economy sank into the gutter, that they can't find jobs, that if they find a job they can't live on what they make. The fault lies with the greedy and wealthy and their governmental stooges that have allowed corporations to take over the government leaving the protection of the general welfare of the people to the dogs, better known as the rich and corporations.

And, any American who thinks that this could never happen to them is a fool.

"Some 15,000 residential customers have lost water service, and tens of thousands more are in danger of losing it, thanks to past due bills. But businesses owing hundreds of thousands of dollars have not been disconnected, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department records show."

Of course, no human being should ever have their basic water supply shut off, for any reason. End this madness now! What has become of America?

''Workers around the world are emulating the fast-food protests that started in New York in 2012. Their fight for dignity at work, better wages, stable hours, opportunities for advancement and no more wage theft has gone global.

''On Thursday, May 15, in the largest job actions in the industry's history, fast-food workers in over 30 countries on 6 continents will participate in protests over poverty wages, lack of full-time positions, poor working conditions and management retaliation. US workers will protest in over 160 cities throughout the country, the tenth and largest round of strikes since the first actions in NYC in November 2012. Fast-food workers participating in the "Fight for 15" include those in Alabama, the Carolinas and other states not known for their labor activism.

Most UK ''chippies'' are small businesses, run by the owners and/or with part-time staff ! Will you start making sense with your somewhat random links ?!! Or - are you taking snooz strategy of trying to find random links about the UK, lol ?!!!

It was a nice piece tho' which I enjoyed reading because I know that University and city well & I excerpt from it .. ''Unions need to get smarter and more flexible in the way they organise in order to adapt to the constantly changing labour markets and laws that make organising workers difficult. It can be done, but it requires a fundamental shake-up of the way unions currently operate and the adoption of more innovative and tactical approaches to organising.'' I also append and recommend, fyi :

Do you consider yourself as being a victim of ''bashing'' by me ?!!! Sowwy ;-) BUT unions DO need shaking up too I believe !! I did like your link because I had the wit to open it , hint hint lol ! Also ...

“The prevalence of low wage work extends well beyond the industries and occupations that may typically be perceived as low wage,” ... “The low wage work crisis and the crisis of wage inequality extends well into the health care and academic employment sectors.” - from your link and I think that you ought to see this link too :

“The prevalence of low wage work extends well beyond the industries and occupations that may typically be perceived as low wage,”

The largely UN-recognized ( in official circles ) drain "on" & cancer "in" the economy. This cancer has metastasized - HUGELY - throughout the body of society - and is quickly compromising the body's ability to survive.

Interesting links. Thanx & from slate.com - I quote ... ''For both sides, turnout is everything in this year’s elections. And if Democrats can discourage even a handful of Republicans, then they’ve won themselves an important boost.'' Probably true and also hmmmm too ;-)

EVERYONE SHOULD VOTE !!! But people should not think that that is all they should do !! They should look to empower themselves and maybe even try to inform, inspire, mobilise and organise, for The 99% !

However, if you give the slightest hoot about your country & for democracy in The US, then please watch the following video from Thom Hartmann in its entirety .. but especially the five very powerful minutes from minute 23 to 28 :

Alas, re. ''Thanksgiving'' far too many Turkeys HAVE been voting for exactly that !!! All the Televisual-Valium and MSM-BS hasn't exactly helped tho' !! So it DOES need saying, imho !

You can't mandate voting without changing the law - but I am myself in favour of mandated voting ... like in Australia inter alia. However, no one can be forced to vote FOR anyone and thus there must also be a 'non of the above' option and even a blank box provided for a popular 'write in' option !!

Democracy is far too precious not to keep working at it - ''do you disagree with that'' ?!!!

I have now - ''Write-in candidates are not allowed in presidential, municipal, or primary elections.'' !!! Is that only just in Arkansas or does it apply everywhere in US ?!! Worrying ! Also fyi, perhaps also see :

Laws vary. Look up Ron Paul write in campaign, I remember something happening back then. I know that at least some states allow write-ins. There was a lot of talk about write ins and Paul, so there may be some information about it. We really do have to do something about ballot access laws.

''It’s often assumed that people are paid what they’re worth. According to this logic, minimum wage workers aren’t worth more than the $7.25 an hour they now receive. If they were worth more, they’d earn more. Any attempt to force employers to pay them more will only kill jobs. According to this same logic, CEOs of big companies are worth their giant compensation packages, now averaging 300 times pay of the typical American worker. They must be worth it or they wouldn’t be paid this much. Any attempt to limit their pay is fruitless because their pay will only take some other form.

"Paid-what-you’re-worth" is a dangerous myth.

''Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today’s dollars. Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour. ''

''The reason Wall Street bankers got fat paychecks plus a total of $26.7 billion in bonuses last year wasn’t because they worked so much harder or were so much more clever or insightful than most other Americans. They cleaned up because they happen to work in institutions — big Wall Street banks — that hold a privileged place in the American political economy.

''And why, exactly, do these institutions continue to have such privileges? Why hasn’t Congress used the antitrust laws to cut them down to size so they’re not too big to fail, or at least taxed away their hidden subsidy (which, after all, results from their taxpayer-financed bailout)?

''Perhaps it’s because Wall Street also accounts for a large proportion of campaign donations to major candidates for Congress and the presidency of both parties.''

Ok dude(tte?), once is enough !!! I really do get it !! LOL ! From your nice link :

''Images on social media showed workers demonstrating in other places including Dublin and Sao Paulo.

''In New York City, a couple of hundred demonstrators beat drums, blew whistles and chanted in the rain outside a Domino’s for about a half-hour.

“Corporations are able to make money — millions and billions of dollars. We should be able to make a decent salary so we can take care of our families,” said Sheila Brown, a mother of four who works at a KFC restaurant.''

Agreed, it is rubbish, and just plays along side every other game they play. I like the starter job argument. I guess at one time fast food might have been a starter job, but now with the migration of manufacturing jobs, these fast food jobs have become career jobs. None of the arguments against raises plays very well if you look at what the top executives are making as well as the share holders. Personally I don't like minimum wage laws because I think they are short sighted. I prefer forcing companies to pay employees by a scale from lowest to highest paid. I think that the dividends paid to share holders should also be taken into consideration when determining that scale.

Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not against minimum wage. I just don't think it's enough by itself. I think that a minimum should be set, call it x dollars per hour. The company would then be required to pay all of it's other employees based on a scale. So that an employee with 2 years at the company was paid 120% of x, and so forth. The CEO of that company would be paid 500% of x, and the maximum dividend check would be 10% of x per share. Those are just imaginary numbers to illustrate what sort of scale I am talking about. A system like that would insure that a company didn't just eliminate middle jobs to preserve it's high paid jobs and the money it was giving it's share holders. It might also make some jobs pay more than minimum wage to start if those companies wanted to pay their executives more, or their share holders more, they would have to raise their starting pay as well.

I like the wealth tax to provide a basic income. Like my idea, it has a lot of particulars that need to be worked out, but after all we are just fielding ideas at this point to try and pick the best ones to run with. We can work out the particulars later.

I hadn't thought about interns, that is pathetic. Then you have companies like Kimberly Clark that claim they pay one thing, but high all their low paid workers through temp agencies. If you look at what the average person earns there it is a totally different picture than the one they present on paper.

Libertarian influence in the Republican party I would guess. It is sad, that a lot of middle class folks support the Libertarians on the basis that they don't trust this government and would rather it do nothing, than do more to harm them. The truth of the matter is that most of the things Libertarians do hurts the very people who support them.